PROBLEM STATEMENTS:

As the next potential Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will stop the hemorrhage of Tennesseans losing their family homes and being displaced from their traditional neighborhoods by aggressive, rich investors, developers, and greedy politicians signing on to this economic and housing genocide. No one should be forced out of their neighborhoods for being poor.

The Housing Outreach Unified Security Economic (HOUSE) will stop the displacement and relocation of Tennesseans being violated by tampering with their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Insidious legislative bills, discriminatory policies, and backdoor deals have caused these inhumane actions against citizens of Tennessee who have been forced to move out of Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga to surrounding rural counties, which changes the scope of rural living.

A safe, affordable, stable home is indispensable to any Tennessee family’s ability to thrive. Atwater, as the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, will fight with Tennesseans to preserve the heart and soul of Tennessee neighborhoods by getting residents engaged and demanding a solution to our gentrification instability, foreclosure, and affordable housing crisis. We believe that to create a “Tennessee for All”, where all residents should have the freedom to thrive, we must tackle our housing crisis using a multi-pronged approach that targets local, state, federal, and corporate actors without tax incentives. My goal is to “Make Tennessee Whole Again”.

Tennessee faces a severe affordable housing crisis driven by rapid population growth and insufficient supply, with a statewide shortage of roughly 120,000 homes. Extremely low-income households, particularly in major cities like Nashville, Memphis, and Chattanooga, struggle to find housing within the 30% income-to-rent threshold, with average rents around $1,700-$1,800 monthly.

Tennessee is experiencing a severe, long-term housing crisis driven by a shortage of affordable, quality units, high eviction rates, and lingering effects of historic disinvestment. As of 2026, the state faces a 141,000-unit shortage, with thousands of residents struggling with substandard housing, high property taxes, and increasing, near-pandemic-level evictions.

Tennessee’s housing crisis is multifaceted and complex. It has been shaped by an inadequate supply of affordable housing; high property tax rates often based on inflated property assessments; aging and deteriorating housing; a lack of home repair resources; and a pattern of bulk ownership that has exacerbated displacement pressures.

Each of these factors contributes to an environment in which safe, stable, and affordable housing is out of reach for many residents with low incomes. As city officials and housing advocacy organizations work to address those challenges, research supported by Poverty Solutions provides crucial feedback on what is effective and what is not.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I am totally against the criminalization of homeless individuals. To counteract these barbaric actions of this present administration, I would be initiative-taking in implementing my “Homeless to Homeownership Plan”. Housing should be a human right in the State of Tennessee.

No human being should be sleeping on the streets, while trillions of dollars are allocated to building luxury hotels, upscale apartments, and other infrastructure to plump the wealthy developer’s pockets. I agree with economic development in conjunction with Community benefit Agreements, but what I am not in agreement with is letting people suffer on the streets as if they are chattel slaves waiting to die. Every citizen deserves life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and they will have the opportunity to receive this benefit in my new administration.

Poverty is a real problem in the State of Tennessee; therefore, if a gubernatorial candidate or politician does not acknowledge the existence of poor people, that further reflects that not all citizens are important in this canvas of cultural fiber of diversity. We must lift from the bottom up! Wealth will never trickle down to the poor.

Tennessee ranks 41st in Poverty Rate at 16.7% (poverty rankings by state). The Poverty Rate of Tennessee is moderately higher than the national average of 14.6%.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I will not close my eyes nor turn my head to the economic atrocities going on in the State of Tennessee that have caused great harm to segments of the Volunteer State. No politicians, including the Governor, should violate the constitutional rights of any citizens who deserve the same financial opportunity as any other citizens, regardless of their economic status or hardship.

While new development across the State of Tennessee, from Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Chattanooga, to Murfreesboro, is bustling with new economic developments, urban decayed neighborhoods, and rural Tennessee is suffering at alarming rates. Beautiful apartments, hotels, and entertainment establishments are wonderful, but not at the cost of neglecting human capital in distressed and rural areas.

As the next Governor of the State of Tennessee, I prefer to invest in human capital instead of infrastructure that benefits the rich. It will be my goal to provide funding to small business owners who have been overlooked for too long, and it may be too late for some locally owned businesses. Many small businesses also did not receive the bulk of the PPP distributions under the watchful eyes of this present Tennessee Governor, who had no accountability or oversight. As the incoming Governor, I would launch an investigation into the analysis of PPP funding allocation.

This unbalanced, immoral control of economic funding leads to poverty because not all Tennesseans are getting their fair share of the prosperity pie or a seat at the table of economic distribution. The poverty rate in Tennessee is 16.7%. One out of every 6 residents of Tennessee lives in poverty.

Atwater, as the next Governor, should have a boots-on-the-ground, people-centered, and community-driven attitude to serve the people. Consequently, my main goal is to place people back into politics.

Key aspects of the Tennessee affordable housing shortage include:

·         The Coverage Gap: There is a significant shortage of rental homes available for households at or below 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI).

·         Nashville Crisis: The Nashville area alone needs approximately 50,000 to 90,000 new housing units by 2030, as demand continues to outpace construction.

·         Cost Burdened Residents: Many residents, including essential workers, are severely cost-burdened, paying more than 50% of their income on housing.

·         Contributing Factors: The shortage is driven by high land/construction costs, restrictive zoning, and increased population, according to J. P. Morgan. 

·         Statewide Impact: The crisis is not limited to urban centers; it is spreading to smaller areas, such as rural counties.

The Tennessee housing market is struggling to keep pace with demand, causing a gap in both rental and for-sale, single-family homes.

Key Aspects of the Tennessee Housing Crisis:

Affordability and Stability: A major portion of the city's housing is either unsafe, in need of significant repair, or not affordable for low-income residents.

Eviction Rates: Evictions are rising again, reaching nearly 10,000 per year by early 2024, placing immense pressure on families and causing housing instability.

Aging Housing Stock & Vacancy: Decades of population decline have left cities and towns with a large inventory of vacant, deteriorated properties, causing a supply-demand mismatch and a reliance on demolition.

Predatory Lending and Tax Foreclosures: Despite improvements from tax reform, historical practices like over-assessment and predatory lending have caused widespread housing loss, particularly for Black homeowners.

Vulnerable Populations: The city is focusing on seniors and disabled residents, who are often in unsafe or poorly maintained housing, prompting new, strict inspection plans.

Governance Issues: There are ongoing calls to reform the State and Local Land Bank Authority, the city's largest landowner, to better serve residents, with proposals to shift control between the mayor and city council. Atwater will aggressively address community-based ownership, Community Benefit Agreements, and Land Trust.

Over the next five years, my administration will examine Poverty Solutions by exploring several features of Tennessee’s housing ecosystem that prevent many Tennesseans,78% of whom are Black, from obtaining safe, stable, affordable housing. First, predatory lending practices and the economic impact of the recession led to widespread mortgage and tax foreclosures. From 2005 to 2015, 120,000 residential properties in Memphis, nearly half of all such properties in the city, experienced at least one mortgage or tax foreclosure. During this time, Memphis shifted from a majority-owner to a majority-renter city. In 1991, black homeownership was 91%. Consequently, Memphis is 63% rental now. While thousands of homeowners were eligible for Memphis’s Homeowners Property Tax Assistance Program (HPTAP, now called HOPE), Poverty Solutions could have been the solution that assisted just a fraction of those who could have applied for this exemption, which could have prevented foreclosure.

The large number of foreclosures spurred greater instability in the city’s housing market, as speculators bought foreclosed properties in bulk, generated profits, and, in numerous cases, evicted tenants. With banks largely unwilling to lend after the foreclosure crisis, many of these homes were also resold to out-of-town investors and developers through predatory land contracts, which often carry high interest rates and little protection from eviction.

In addition, due to the city’s aging housing stock, deferred maintenance from investor-landlords, and limited enforcement of rental codes, homeowners and renters alike face significant home repair needs, threatening their health, safety, and long-term housing stability.

These factors combine to create significant barriers to Tennesseans obtaining safe, stable, affordable housing. The Poverty Solutions will set out to tackle, in partnership with policymakers and community groups.

To fully understand how these housing issues affected Tennesseans, Poverty Solutions will analyze the housing needs of residents and the housing ecosystem in a variety of ways:

·         Helped identify housing in Tennessee at risk of losing affordability protections.

·         Interview and document homeowners with low incomes to understand the barriers they face in accessing Tennessee’s HPTAP exemption.

·         Analyze patterns and consequences of bulk property ownership in Tennessee by linking datasets on property transactions and ownership to subsequent eviction filings, childhood lead poisoning events, and demolitions.

·         Interview dozens of community-based organizations to better understand the city’s home repair ecosystem.

·         Analyze overall home repair needs in Tennessee.

·         Partnered with all cities and towns to place an Affordable Housing Policy Administrator in the Housing and Revitalization Department, where they evaluated existing home repair programs in the city and reviewed leading home repair programs.

·         Interview participants in a local program that helps Tennessee homeowners with low income pay for necessary home repairs, to understand the impact of small-scale, emergency repairs on housing stability.

·         Review existing research on land contracts and interview local and national experts on the dangers and potential benefits of land contracts.

·         Met with community leaders and residents to discuss the factors that led to both positive and negative experiences with land contracts.

Population and socioeconomic trends have driven a surge in housing demand in and across Tennessee, particularly since 2020.

In the early 2020s, Tennessee welcomed new residents from wealthier parts of the country, and many of its residents moved out of urban cores into more rural areas.

Because Tennessee’s housing supply has not kept up with these demands, housing costs have become increasingly expensive.

Some areas and populations in Tennessee may feel these housing challenges are more numerous than others. For example, higher housing prices have increasingly seeped into Tennessee’s rural areas.

Responses and Mitigation Efforts:

Homeowner Assistance: Programs like the Homeowners Property Assistance (HOUSE) will be in place to prevent tax foreclosure for low-income residents.

Rehabilitation Initiatives: Projects like the Rehabbed & Ready program, supported by set-aside funds and creative repair efforts, and Invest Tennessee will work to rehabilitate homes to assist individuals with holding on to their family homes.

New Development: The state will be engaging in aggressive building and rehabilitation, to add to the now slightly reduced 150,000-unit shortage.

ATWATER PLEDGE TO BUILD 150,000 AFFORDABLE HOMES WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT (HUD), COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GRANTS (CDBG), SNIF, AND TENNESSEE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT AGENCY (THDA).